Grand Haven, MI STR Report 2026: $28,473 on 199 Listings

Thomas Garner
Aug 19
13 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Grand Haven, Michigan sits at the mouth of the Grand River where it meets Lake Michigan, in Ottawa County, home to the Musical Fountain, the Coast Guard City USA designation, Grand Haven State Park, and the lighthouse-and-catwalk walk that draws pier photographers at sunset. It's about 30 to 35 minutes west of Grand Rapids via I-96, close enough that broker copy sometimes tries to fold the two markets together. The published data doesn't support that.

Grand Haven's own extract shows a typical year of $28,473 across 199 listings for the August 2025 through July 2026 vintage, with ADR of $349 and occupancy of 39.2 percent. That figure belongs to the City of Grand Haven specifically — not to Grand Haven Charter Township, a separate jurisdiction with its own governance, and not to any of the smaller Ottawa County lakeshore towns that show up in the same regional search, each of which has its own separate, real, and non-interchangeable number. This is not legal advice.

The Grand Haven Year: $28,473 on 199 Listings

The core figures: $28,473 typical annual revenue, ADR $349, occupancy 39.2 percent, RevPAR $142, across 199 listings in the August 2025 through July 2026 vintage. Average stay length is 4.7 nights, and average booking lead time is 78 days — guests are planning a lakeshore trip a couple months out rather than booking last-minute.

The listing mix here reads differently than a typical cottage row. Entire-home listings make up 98.0 percent of the sample, but houses are only 43.2 percent — the rest is a real mix of condos and other unit types, not a strip of single-family lake cottages. Two-bedroom units are the most common size, and capacity for six guests is the most common tier at 31.2 percent. Superhost status covers 51.3 percent of the sample.

Minimum-stay settings split two ways: 13.6 percent of listings set a one-night minimum, while 88 listings — 44.2 percent of the sample, the single most common minimum-stay setting in the market — require 30 nights or more. That's a notable split between short-stay and extended-stay operators sharing the same 199-listing pool, worth keeping in mind separately from the occupancy and revenue figures, which describe bookings across all stay lengths combined.

RevPAR of $142 sits meaningfully below ADR of $349 once occupancy of 39.2 percent is applied across a full year, which is normal for a strongly seasonal beach market — the summer months carry rates that the shoulder and off-season months don't come close to matching. A buyer running a quick mental model shouldn't take ADR times 365 as a revenue estimate; RevPAR already does that math honestly, and it's the more useful single number for a fast comparison against another market's own RevPAR figure.

Why Spring Lake and Ferrysburg Stay on Their Own Lines

Spring Lake, across the channel from Grand Haven and sharing the same Ottawa County zip code cluster in casual reference, published its own figure for the identical vintage: $24,261 on 41 listings, ADR $341, occupancy 35.4 percent, year-over-year minus 6.1 percent, with peak months August, June, and July and January as its own hole. Its origin market on the extract is Grand Rapids, not Chicago — a different guest pool than Grand Haven's.

Ferrysburg, another small city sharing the river mouth area, published $42,020 on 22 listings — the smallest sample of the three towns, and the highest per-listing figure, with ADR $494, occupancy 33.6 percent, peak months August, July, and September, and year-over-year minus 14.9 percent. Its sample is 100 percent houses, a different listing stock composition than Grand Haven's condo-and-house mix.

None of these three numbers averages meaningfully into another. A 199-listing sample, a 41-listing sample, and a 22-listing sample carry different statistical weight even before accounting for the real differences in ADR, occupancy, and seasonality between them. A buyer memo or marketing packet that blends Spring Lake's $24,261 into Grand Haven's $28,473 to produce a rounder 'Ottawa County lakeshore' number, or that treats Ferrysburg's higher per-listing figure as evidence Grand Haven is underpriced, is manufacturing a number none of the three towns actually published.

Each town's year-over-year trend also tells a slightly different story worth keeping separate. Grand Haven is down 9.6 percent, Spring Lake is down 6.1 percent, and Ferrysburg is down 14.9 percent — three different rates of softening across three different sample sizes in the same general area. Reading all three together as 'the Ottawa County lakeshore is down' misses that Ferrysburg's decline, on just 22 listings, is far more sensitive to a handful of individual bookings shifting year over year than Grand Haven's decline across 199 listings is.

Muskegon Is a Different City Entirely

Muskegon, the larger lakeshore city north of Grand Haven, published $27,274 on 237 listings — a bigger sample than Grand Haven's and a superficially similar revenue figure, but a separate incorporated city with its own downtown, its own port history, and its own extract. The similarity in headline numbers is coincidental, not evidence the two markets behave the same way.

A listing or loan file that cites Muskegon's figure to support a Grand Haven address is making the same mistake as a Spring Lake blend, just with a bigger, more distant neighbor. Muskegon's 237-listing sample describes Muskegon's own listing stock and guest pattern. It doesn't stand in for Grand Haven's river-mouth, Coast Guard City identity, and it shouldn't appear in a Grand Haven-specific pro forma except as clearly labeled regional comparison.

Fruitport and West Olive: Missing Years, Not Zeros

Two nearby areas that come up in regional searches — Fruitport and West Olive — have no published typical year in this sample at all. That's a genuine data gap, not a zero and not an invitation to borrow a number from Grand Haven, Spring Lake, or anywhere else to fill it.

A buyer memo or marketing packet that files a missing Fruitport or West Olive year as if it matched Grand Haven's occupancy is fabricating a figure that doesn't exist in the source data. The honest move is stating plainly that no confirmed market exists for those specific areas, and building any analysis on those addresses from the property's own actual numbers rather than from a neighboring town's extract.

A related but different name — Greilickville — occasionally surfaces in broader Michigan lakeshore data pulls. It belongs to the Grand Traverse Bay and Traverse City market, several hours north, and has no connection to Grand Haven or Ottawa County at all. Treat any vendor scrape that lists it alongside Grand Haven as a labeling error, not a data point worth citing here.

Reading the Calendar: August Peak, January Hole

Grand Haven's peak-3 months are August, July, and June, with August as the single strongest month. The soft stretch runs January, February, and November, with January as the softest month in the sample. That calendar reflects a classic Lake Michigan beach-town pattern: summer pier weather and festival season carry the year, and the off-season runs cold and quiet.

The Coast Guard Festival, running July 24 through August 2, 2026, sits inside that peak window and helps explain why July carries real weight alongside August rather than trailing off as a shoulder month. That said, festival attendance figures and headcount estimates are a tourism metric, not a booking metric — they describe how many people showed up to watch the parade and fireworks, not how many nights were actually reserved at any specific listing. The two numbers should never be conflated in a pro forma.

A pricing strategy built around this calendar prices August and July at peak rates, treats June as a strong shoulder month, and sets realistic expectations for January, February, and November rather than assuming the same demand carries through the full year. A photo set that leads with pier light and festival week imagery for the summer season, and doesn't try to sell a January weekend on the same footing, matches what the data actually shows.

The 78-day average lead time is worth reading against this same calendar. A guest booking in late May for an August stay is planning around the festival and peak-season crowds well in advance, which gives a host real room to adjust pricing upward as a peak date fills rather than needing to discount early to avoid an empty calendar. That same lead-time pattern doesn't necessarily hold for the January-through-February stretch, where a shorter, more opportunistic booking window is more likely and pricing flexibility matters more.

Who Manages Grand Haven's 199 Listings

Professional management covers 28.1 percent of the sample. Unsalted Vacations is the named manager with the largest visible footprint at 31 listings — a real, confirmed share of the market, not a placeholder. Evolve also appears in the market's brand data, though without a comparably large confirmed listing count in this sample.

That leaves roughly 72 percent of Grand Haven's listings self-managed, a meaningfully larger self-managed share than some more heavily consolidated resort markets. For a host or buyer weighing DIY management against hiring a manager, the practical question in Grand Haven is less about whether a national brand already dominates the market — none does — and more about whether the listing's own copy and photos read as generic beach-town filler or as something specific to the Musical Fountain, the catwalk, and the river-mouth identity that actually distinguishes this town from Spring Lake or Ferrysburg next door.

That distinction matters because with 199 listings competing in one market, a single listing's copy is a meaningful lever on where it lands in that pool — more so than in a market where one management company already sets the tone for a large share of the listing stock.

A superhost share of 51.3 percent — just over half the sample — also suggests a market where a meaningful number of self-managed hosts are clearing the consistency bar Airbnb's own program requires, not just the professionally managed minority. That's a useful data point for a new host weighing whether self-management is realistic in this specific market: the answer, based on the sample, is that plenty of independent operators are already doing it successfully.

Chicago Is the Origin Market, Grand Rapids Is the Drive

Chicago is the origin city named in Grand Haven's extract — the metro area guests are searching from before they book. Grand Rapids, about 30 to 35 minutes east via I-96, functions as a satellite drive market and a day-trip feeder, not the primary source of demand. That's a different origin pattern than Spring Lake, whose own extract names Grand Rapids as its origin market instead of Chicago.

That distinction is worth reflecting in marketing copy. A Grand Haven listing written to appeal to a Grand Rapids day-tripper is aiming at the wrong guest if the actual booking data shows Chicago driving the majority of interest. It's also worth keeping straight in any financial narrative: Grand Rapids' metro-area visitor spending and tourism figures describe a different, larger market and shouldn't be divided by Grand Haven's 199 listings to manufacture a bigger revenue estimate.

The through-line is simple: the guest who searched 'Grand Haven' already chose the river mouth, the pier, and the lighthouse over a Grand Rapids urban stay. A listing or a pro forma should serve that specific choice rather than blur it into a generic West Michigan metro pitch.

For a Chicago-based guest specifically, the drive is a genuine day trip in either direction — a few hours down I-94 and I-96 depending on the exact route — which makes Grand Haven a realistic weekend or long-weekend booking rather than a full vacation-length commitment for a lot of the origin market. That framing is worth reflecting in listing copy aimed at short lead times around three-day weekends, alongside the longer summer bookings the 78-day average lead time already suggests are common.

City Desk, Zoning, and the Township Line

City of Grand Haven short-term rental certification currently lives in named zoning districts only, with existing certificates allowed to continue and transfer under the current rule structure. That's a meaningfully different regulatory posture than a blanket citywide allowance, and it's worth confirming which zoning district a specific parcel actually sits in before assuming certification is available.

City Desk sits at 519 Washington Avenue, with Clerk Maria Boersma as the named point of contact, open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. That's the office to call to confirm current zoning-district certification status for a specific address — this page names the office, not the current parcel-by-parcel rule, which should be confirmed directly before financing or purchase decisions rely on it.

The City of Grand Haven is a separate jurisdiction from Grand Haven Charter Township, which shares part of the name but has its own separate governance and its own separate short-term rental posture. A packet or listing that treats the two as interchangeable — assuming city rules apply to a township parcel, or vice versa — is making a jurisdictional error independent of any revenue-figure error.

What This Data Actually Supports for a Purchase Decision

A buyer underwriting a Grand Haven acquisition against this sample should treat $28,473 as a market-level typical year for a 199-listing sample, not a guaranteed figure for any specific address. The actual property's bedroom count, condition, distance from the pier and downtown Washington Avenue corridor, and whether it can legally hold a zoning-district certification all move a specific listing's realistic revenue above or below that market figure — sometimes substantially.

The year-over-year decline of 9.6 percent deserves a place in that underwriting alongside the revenue level, not a footnote below it. A buyer paying a purchase price calibrated to a market that was stronger a year ago, without adjusting for the direction the market is currently moving, is underwriting yesterday's number rather than the one likely to matter over a five- or ten-year hold.

The zoning-district certification question is arguably the single highest-leverage item on this list, because it's a binary that can make or break the entire investment thesis independent of any revenue figure. A property in a district that doesn't currently allow certification, or one relying on a transferred certificate whose status needs reconfirming, changes the deal in a way no amount of favorable occupancy data can offset. That's a City Desk phone call, not an extract line item — and it belongs early in due diligence, not after an offer is already accepted.

How to Read This Lakeshore market as a Host or Buyer

The complete, honest picture: Grand Haven $28,473 on 199 listings, ADR $349, occupancy 39.2 percent, RevPAR $142, year-over-year minus 9.6 percent, peak-3 August/July/June, January as the hole, 28.1 percent professionally managed with Unsalted Vacations the named manager at 31 listings, stay length 4.7 nights, lead time 78 days, and 44.2 percent of listings set to a 30-plus-night minimum. Chicago is the origin market; Grand Rapids is the 30-to-35-minute drive, not the source of demand.

Spring Lake ($24,261/41 listings), Ferrysburg ($42,020/22 listings), and Muskegon ($27,274/237 listings) each print their own separate, real figure and stay on their own line in any comparison. Fruitport and West Olive have no published year at all — a data gap to disclose, not a number to guess by borrowing a neighbor's market.

A pro forma, a listing description, and a marketing narrative built from this material should treat the $28,473 figure as the whole story for Grand Haven specifically: the year-over-year decline stated alongside the revenue level, the actual peak and soft months named rather than assumed, and the zoning-district certification question confirmed with City Desk before any purchase or listing decision assumes it away.

The discipline required here isn't complicated, but it is easy to skip under deadline pressure: every time a number gets typed into a packet, it should be traceable back to the specific town it came from. $28,473 traces to Grand Haven's own 199-listing sample. $24,261 traces to Spring Lake. $42,020 traces to Ferrysburg. $27,274 traces to Muskegon. None of the four is a stand-in for any of the others, and a packet that keeps that discipline through every section — pro forma, appraisal support, and public listing copy alike — is the packet that survives a lender or buyer checking the actual data against the actual tax map.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Grand Haven's published typical year for short-term rentals?

$28,473 across 199 listings for the August 2025 through July 2026 vintage, with ADR of $349 and occupancy of 39.2 percent. That figure describes the City of Grand Haven specifically, not Grand Haven Charter Township, Spring Lake, Ferrysburg, or any other nearby Ottawa County town — each of which has its own separate published number.

What are Grand Haven's peak and slow months?

Peak-3 is August, July, and June, with August the single strongest month. January is the softest month, with February and November also running low. The Coast Guard Festival, held July 24 through August 2, 2026, sits inside that peak window, though festival attendance figures are a tourism metric and shouldn't be confused with booking occupancy.

Can I combine Spring Lake's and Grand Haven's numbers for a bigger picture?

No. Spring Lake published its own separate figure — $24,261 on 41 listings — with its own ADR, occupancy, and origin market (Grand Rapids rather than Chicago). Blending it with Grand Haven's $28,473 produces a number that doesn't describe either town's actual market and understates the real difference in sample size between a 199-listing and a 41-listing cell.

What about Ferrysburg's higher per-listing figure — does that mean Grand Haven is underpriced?

Not necessarily. Ferrysburg's $42,020 comes from a much smaller sample of 22 listings, all houses, with a steeper year-over-year decline of minus 14.9 percent. Different inventory composition and a smaller sample can produce a higher average without implying Grand Haven's larger, more diverse 199-listing market is mispriced by comparison.

Is Muskegon's data relevant to a Grand Haven listing?

Only as clearly labeled regional comparison. Muskegon is a separate lakeshore city with its own extract — $27,274 on 237 listings — and its similarity to Grand Haven's headline number is coincidental. It shouldn't be cited as if it described Grand Haven's own market.

Is there published data for Fruitport or West Olive?

No — both are genuine gaps in this extract, not zeros. Don't fill them by borrowing a neighboring town's figure. If you're evaluating a Fruitport or West Olive property, build the analysis from that property's own actual numbers or a conservative, clearly labeled projection instead.

Does a city short-term rental certification apply to any Grand Haven address?

Current City of Grand Haven certification lives in named zoning districts only, with existing certificates allowed to continue and transfer. Confirm the specific zoning district for any address directly with City Hall at 519 Washington Avenue (Clerk Maria Boersma) before assuming certification is available — this is general information, not a confirmed parcel-level answer.

Who is the largest property manager operating in Grand Haven?

Unsalted Vacations, with 31 confirmed listings in this extract — a real, meaningful share of the 199-listing sample. Evolve also appears in the market's brand data. Overall, professional management covers only 28.1 percent of the market, leaving most Grand Haven listings self-managed.

Where do Grand Haven's guests come from?

Chicago is the origin market named in the extract — the primary metro area guests are searching from. Grand Rapids, about 30 to 35 minutes east via I-96, functions as a satellite drive market rather than the main source of demand, which is a different pattern than Spring Lake's extract, where Grand Rapids is the named origin.

What does the 44.2 percent of listings with a 30-plus-night minimum tell me?

It shows a meaningful share of Grand Haven's 199 listings are configured for extended stays rather than short weekend bookings — the single most common minimum-stay setting in the sample. It's a real operator choice worth noting, but it describes a calendar setting, not confirmed occupancy during any specific month.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Grand Haven's own published year is $28,473 on 199 listings, and Spring Lake, Ferrysburg, and Muskegon each print their own separate, real figure next door. Blend any of them together and you're pricing a market that doesn't exist.

We help Grand Haven hosts and buyers build pro formas and listing copy from this market's own confirmed twelve-month data instead of a rounded Ottawa County average. If your Grand Haven listing or purchase analysis still leans on a neighboring town's number, send us the live listing.

Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.